


Something Like Forward Motion

by samidha



Category: Supernatural
Genre: End of the season, Gen, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 18:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: After using the dream root, Sam finds he can still enter Dean's dreams. (The summary is the prompt.)





	Something Like Forward Motion

**Author's Note:**

> Of course I would have taken this prompt. LOL.

The wind whips up around him. He shivers so hard it’s painful. No matter how many times Dean dreams in this landscape, it’s the same. The cold forces his eyes closed, like the wind might rip his eyeballs right out of his head. He forces himself to move forward, because he knows what’s coming, knows where he has to go.

He has to find Dean.

He moves forward against the wind, leans so that he’s bent nearly ninety degrees, situating himself to get more forward motion. There’s no turning back. There is only one objective. He knows where Dean is, he only needs to get there, needs to force his way there.

For months there is this dream, nearly every night. Sam has memorized it, but knowing the territory doesn’t make it easier to work through the bitter cold. Every night it seems to take hours to fight the wind, to batter on through the frigid snow.

But there is nothing else to do. Giving up is not an option, not when he knows what’s at stake.

Not when he knows what the dream means.

He thinks of all the times Dean must have done this for him over the years, contrasts himself with Max, with Ansem, still, all this time later. Something--someone--had held him together, had ensured that he stayed sane through it all, the visions of yellow eyes dancing with dark mirth at the corners of his eyes. It had to be Dean, it had always been Dean.

Until suddenly the tables had turned, Sam had mastered a dream under the power of the dream root and now he couldn’t exactly stay out of Dean’s head. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t imagine it any other way, not now, when Dean needed him so bad.

He pushes on through the blinding wind, through the ache of snow seeping down his collar and against his skin. He pushes on through to the center, imagining Dean’s warmth, what it will feel like to reach him, finally, what it will feel like to be able to _do_ something.

He _will_ be able to do something, even if all that is is to draw Dean against him, to share the warmth, to wait out the storm--

And there he is. He sits in the cold, visibly shivering but untouched by the snow Sam has battered through. Sam presses forward, the last six steps an agony as he thinks of snow seeping into his boots, covering nearly every inch of him now.

Dean doesn’t watch him. His eyes are focused elsewhere, and Sam follows his gaze toward the old house, the last place they had ever trusted Lisa and Ben would be something approaching safe.

Dean mutters to himself, and Sam can’t hear, but he knows the words by heart anyway after all this time.

”She won’t remember,” Dean murmurs, over and over. Sam shivers with dread as he crosses into the eye, one nearly frozen hand coming to rest on Dean’s shoulder.

Dean burns up, as always, fevered, his heat forcing its way through Sam as soon as they touch. Sam shakes under the force of the heat, but he doesn’t let go, _can’t_ let go, won’t let go.

Dean’s eyes are clouded with memory, unseeing, but his litany remains. ”She won’t remember.”

”I do,” Sam whispers, getting his arms around Dean’s shoulders. ”I got you. I do.”

It isn’t enough, won’t ever be enough, not for this. But Sam can’t let himself be consumed by the bitter defeat that floods through him now, the anger that threatens to overtake everything, makes him want to ask Dean over and over, _Why? How could you? Why?_

Because he knows the why, deep inside of himself, in the dark where all his memories--all of them--reside.

Dean can only be himself, even if his self only wants one thing--to erase it all. All Sam can do is hold onto his brother, offering a port in the storm, offering Dean home and love and safety.

All Sam can do is hold on. ”I do, Dean,” he whispers, and he waits. He holds on tight, repeating himself in time with Dean’s own mantra, waiting for Dean to hear him, to grip one of his hands tight and let Sam pull him in out of the freezing cold.

Sam can wait all night. And he almost does. It feels like he’s waiting hours for Dean to see him. Just like every night, Sam buckles down and he waits, holding Dean close and never once giving up, no matter how long it is that Dean stares unseeingly through the cold and the dark. Then something breaks through.

”I do,” Sam says again, his throat raw and aching, and suddenly Dean reaches up, grabs his hand and squeezes.

”Isn’t enough,” Dean whispers hoarsely.

The truth of it burns its way through Sam. ”I know,” he whispers. ”But I got you,” he says. ”I got you, but we gotta go.”

Dean nods, his body stiff, oozing unhappiness.

”Come on, Dean.” He dares to pull his brother back a little, so that he is leaning against him, hopefully drawing some amount of strength. ”Let me take you home.”

Dean squeezes his hand with what feels like all his strength and nods.


End file.
